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Michelle only shakes her head, and I take a bite of my sandwich, chewing. The dressing rooms are crazy around us, the shows lining up one after the other, and the designers already look dead on their feet—it’s only the second day.
I feel the same way, but this morning when I woke up, I felt different than I did before. I left Noah’s place at the crack of dawn to get back to the hotel room and get ready to come here. But not before we exchanged numbers and he made me promise to let him know when I have a bit of free time.
“So?” Michelle asks when I don’t volunteer anything. “What happened?”
“We…talked,” I say.
Michelle looks eager to hear more.
“And then wedidn’ttalk.” I blush. Hard.
Michelle squeals and stamps her feet on the ground, an applause when her hands are busy.
“It was a bad idea,” I say, but I’m laughing.
“It wasn’t!” Michelle cries out. “Seriously, you deserve to have fun. And you deserve to have someone fawn over you and treat you like a Princess!”
“I don’t know if Noah’s that guy,” I point out. “I don’t know if he’s capable of treating me like a princess.” But something about him is different than I remember it. He asked for my number. He wants to see me again. He’s serious about it, too. I’m pretty sure he’s not just feeding me a line.
“What do you mean?” Michelle asks.
I shake my head and swallow the bite I was chewing. “The first time, he made it very clear that he doesn’t want anything serious.” I think about trying to call him when I found out I was pregnant and how he didn’t even answer. I don’t mention that part, though. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots.”
“He’s not a leopard,” Michelle says sternly. “And men can change, you know. Maybe he’s grown up.”
“Maybe,” I say, and we eat together in silence for a while longer.
I don’t know if Noah changed, but something about him is different than it was before, and I like the way he looks at me. The way he touches me. I like everything about him. He used to be such a ladies’ man, looking for attention, relishing when the world was staring. Now, he seems to have more depth to him.
But I don’t want to assume something and find out it’s not true. I can’t afford to give my heart away. Not again. And definitely not to him.
Even if he has changed, he still lives here in New York, and I live in Paris. It’s not going to work. It’s really that simple.
But the way he makes me feel really isn’t that simple at all.
“He wants to see me again,” I say.
“That’s good,” Michelle encourages, nodding.
I giggle. “Yeah, it is. But…” I stop myself from telling her he’s the father of my child. Michelle has no idea how complicated this can get.
“Butnothing,” Michelle says. “You should let him spoil you. Have a bit of fun, Ray. Seriously, you deserve it more than anyone. It’s one week.”
Maybe Michelle is right. Besides, it’s not like I can fall head over heels in love with him in just a week. We can have our fun, and old wounds can heal. We can part as unlikely friends. It doesn’thaveto get complicated.
My phone rings and my heart skips a beat. I pick it up, ready to answer Noah’s call.
But it isn’t Noah. Jean-Pierre’s number flashes on the caller ID.
I frown at my phone, my thumb hovering over the talk button.
“Who is it?” Michelle asks.
I shake my head and mute the call instead.
“A past I’mnotinterested in entertaining again. Damn it; I thought he would have forgotten about me by now.”
“JP?” Michelle asks.
